I suggest you check out an online article in the Economist titled “Poker is getting younger, cleverer, duller and much, much richer“.

Its like, way long, but it’s a good read, compiling quotes from top pros over the years and portraying the good, bad (and ugly? nah!) side of poker. It covers but does not dwell on the US anti gambling luck vs skill debate (and irony), but is really all about the changing environment for poker.

The article compares still-going-strong legend, Doyle Brunson, with savvy Internet players like annette_15 (a 19 year old Norwegian, Annette Obrestad) plus has plenty of colourful input and comment on other pro poker players along the way.

(…modern-day poker luminaries as Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, a hirsute scholar of game theory, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, a somewhat less cerebral but wily British professional who wears diamond-encrusted knuckledusters, and Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth, arguably the most celebrated (not least by himself) modern player…)

Here’s a few more quotes from the article:

Today poker is the third most watched sport on cable television in the United States, after car racing and American football, trumping even NBA basketball…while Britain has its own poker channel.

“It doesn’t take most young people long to realise they won’t be the next Michael Jordan. But they can all aspire to be the next Phil Hellmuth, and they don’t even have to work out,” says Mr Hellmuth, slurping a full-cream mocha.

After two weeks of poker, with daily sessions lasting up to 16 hours, Jerry Yang, a psychologist, went home $8.25m richer

Thomas Bihl, winner of a recent HORSE tournament, in which players have to show mastery of five different styles of poker, thinks the game has more in common with finance than it does with basic forms of gambling, because it requires the constant pricing and repricing of risk.

Ms Coren: “Cash is nothing more than chips, just the tools of the trade, like fishing rods to an angler. The game is all about money, and nothing to do with money.”

It blends with skill to produce a game that is “much like life, full of incomplete information and second-guessing,” says Mr Lederer. Poker is certainly more exciting to most than chess, a game of complete information and limited psychology where the better player always wins.

Ms Duke sees other ways in which poker teaches “life skills”. It taught her, for instance, how to be a good loser (“Even the best lose most of the hands they play. If you let that get to you, it will kill you”). She says she even uses poker theory when dealing with her children: “I always bet the minimum when making a threat. If you say no TV rather than no Disneyland, you can always raise later.”

A recommended read! Check it out here at The Economist.

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